The interview covers territory stemming from the simplest examples of a disruptive technology - such as LASIK surgery - to more complicated policy and financing issues, such as Health Savings Accounts, where the disruptive technology is not a routinized procedure but a new form of financing. Christensen, a diabetic, also talks about the role that self-monitoring technologies play in allowing him to track his own health, making it so he "[has]no need ever to see a physician."

The interview is interesting partially because both Christensen and his interviewer, Dr Mark Smith, CEO of the California Healthcare Foundation, are clear that routinized technologies can only go so far in addressing the high-cost issues endemic in health care. They also acknowledge that health care is not a single industry, but several (ten or twelve in their estimate).

These two observations are also true of philanthropy. Simple technological solutions - online grants and financial management, for example - disrupt at the "easy" end - compliance, monitoring, tracking, processing. The harder stuff - social benefit, progress toward goals, strategy selection - is not likely to be disrupted by a technology as we normally think of technology, but by an innovation in the 'technologies" of economics, politics, or social structures. This is why social enterprise is interesting, as it disrupts the old boundaries between the private and independent sectors.

Why is this blog called Philanthropy 2173?

This is a blog about the future. The year 2173 seems sufficiently far enough in the future to give us some perspective. As sure as we are of ourselves now, talking about the future - and making philanthropic investments - requires that we keep a sense of modesty and humor about what we are doing. Philanthropy is for the long-term - for the year 2173.